Janet Norman Knox’s performance prose poem, Artifact Pattern, examines the Alaskan Way Viaduct as a way to observe humanity’s take on climate change. In collaboration with musician Tom McDonald, Knox uses the humor and heaviness of a viaduct and climate in flux to weigh in on what both tell us about ourselves. Built on giant carbon feet, the viaduct’s very cement is a massive carbon sink. The viaduct is our Roman aqueduct, sending carbon like water to quench the empire’s power thirst. The viaduct is lodged in geologic history like a receding glacier. It occupies the same footprint as the fingers of glaciers that retreated, dropping their erratics, sands, and gravels. There are many facts to connect and our very human brains want to recognize the patterns in poetry, in music, in the quandaries of a society speeding headlong into an uncertainty where we may find ourselves.